Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 5:33:13 PM
From the works of John Owen
The protestant religion may be considered either as it is religion in general, — that is, Christian religion; or as it is distinct from and opposite unto another pretended profession of the same religion, whereon it is called Protestant. In the first sense of it, it derives its original from Christ and his apostles. What they taught to be believed, what they commanded to be observed in the worship of God, — all of it, and nothing but that, — is the protestant religion. Nothing else belongs unto it; in nothing else is it concerned. These, therefore, are the principles of the religion of Protestants, where into their faith and obedience are resolved.
1. What was revealed unto the church by the Lord Christ and his apostles is the whole of that religion which God will and doth accept.
2. So far as is needful unto the faith, obedience, and eternal salvation of the church, what they taught, revealed, and commanded is contained in the Scriptures of the New Testament, witnessed unto and confirmed by those of the Old.
3. All that is required of us that we may please God, be accepted with him, and come to the eternal enjoyment of him, is, that we truly believe what is so revealed and taught, yielding sincere obedience unto what is commanded in the Scriptures.
Upon these principles Protestants confidently propose their religion unto the trial of all mankind. If in any thing it be found to deviate from them, — if it exceeds, in any instance, what is so revealed, taught, and commanded, — if it be defective in the faith or practice of any thing that is so revealed or commanded, — they are ready to renounce it. Here they live and die; from this foundation they will not depart: this is their religion.
And if these principles will not secure us, as unto our present acceptance with God in religion, and the eternal enjoyment of him, he hath left all mankind at an utter uncertainty, to make a blind venture for an invisible world; which is altogether inconsistent with his infinite wisdom, goodness, and benignity.
Being in possession of these principles of truth and security from Christ and his apostles, it belongs unto the protestant religion not to change or forego them, and to repose our confidence in the infallibility or authority of the pope of Rome, or of the church whereof he is the head. For these principles of assurance are such as every way become the wisdom and goodness of God; and such as that our nature is not capable in this life of those which are higher or of a more illustrious evidence. Let the contrary unto either of these be demonstrated, and we will renounce the protestant religion. To forego them for such as are irreconcilable unto divine wisdom and goodness, as also to the common reason of mankind, is an effect of the highest folly and of strong delusion.
For that all mankind should be obliged to place all their confidence and assurance of pleasing God, of living unto him, and coming unto the enjoyment of him for eternity, on the pope of Rome and his infallibility, however qualified and circumstantiated, considering what these popes are and have been, is eternally irreconcilable unto the greatness, wisdom, love, and kindness of God, as also unto the whole revelation made of himself by Jesus Christ.
The principles of protestant religion before mentioned do every way become, are highly suited unto, the nature and goodness of God, — no man living shall ever be able to instance in one tittle of them that is not correspondent with divine goodness and wisdom; — but on the first naming of this other way, no man who knows any thing what the pope is, and what is his church, if he be not blinded with prejudice and interest, will be able to satisfy himself that it is consistent with infinite goodness and wisdom to commit the salvation of mankind, which he values above all things, unto such a security.
Neither hath this latter way any better consistency with human wisdom or the common reason of mankind, — namely, that those who are known, many of them, to be better and wiser men than those popes, should resolve their religion, and therein their whole assurance of pleasing God, with all their hopes of a blessed eternity, into the authority and infallibility of the pope and his church, seeing many of them, the most of them, especially for some ages, have been persons wicked, ignorant, proud, sensual, and brutish in their lives.
This, then, is the foundation of the protestant religion, in that it is built on those principles which are every way suited unto the divine nature and goodness, as also satisfactory unto human reason, with a refusal of them which are unworthy of infinite wisdom to give, and the ordinary reason of men to admit or receive.
Secondly, as the name Protestant is distinctive with respect unto some other pretended profession of Christian religion, so it derives this denomination from them who in all ages, after the apostasy of the church of Rome came to be expressly antichristian, departed from the communion of it, opposed it, reformed themselves, and set up the true worship of God according unto the degrees and measures of gospel light which they had received.
This was done successively in a long tract of time, through sundry ages, until, by an accession of multitudes, princes and people, unto the same profession, they openly testified and protested against the papal apostasy and tyranny; whence they became to be commonly called Protestants.
And the principles whereon they all of them proceeded from first to last, which constitute their religion as protestant, were these that follow:
1. That there are in the Scripture, prophecies, predictions, and warnings, especially in the book of the Revelation and the Second Epistle of Paul the apostle to the Thessalonians, that there should be a great apostasy or defection in the visible church from the faith, worship, and holiness of the gospel; and, in opposition unto what was appointed of Christ, the [building] of a worldly, carnal, antichristian church-state, composed of tyranny, idolatry, and persecution, which should for a long time oppress the true worshippers of Christ with bloody cruelty, and at last be itself “consumed with the spirit of his mouth, and destroyed by the brightness of his coming.”
This defection was so plainly foretold, as also the beginning of it, in a “mystery of iniquity,” designed even in the days of the apostles, that believers in all ages did expect the accomplishment of it by the introduction of an antichristian state and power, though the manner of it was hidden from them, until it was really fulfilled. I say, from the days of the apostles, and the giving out of those prophecies and predictions of the coming of antichrist and an apostate church-state with him, all Christians in all ages did believe and expect that it should come, until its real coming, in a way and manner unexpected, confounded their apprehensions about it.
2. Their second principle as Protestants was, that this defection and antichristian church-state, so plainly foretold by the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures, was openly and visibly accomplished in the church of Rome, with the nations that had subjected themselves unto the yoke thereof. Therein they found and saw all that tyranny and oppression, all that pride and self-exaltation above every thing that hath the name of God upon it, all that idolatry and false worship, all that departure from the faith of the gospel, all that contempt of evangelical obedience, which were foretold to come in under and constitute the fatal apostasy.
3. Hereon their third principle was, that as they valued the glory of God, the honor of Christ and the gospel, their own salvation, and the good of the souls of others, they were obliged to forsake and renounce all communion with that apostate church, though they saw that their so doing would cost many of them their dearest blood or lives.
4. They were convinced, hereon, that it was their duty publicly to protest against all those abominations, to reform themselves, as unto faith, worship, and conversation, according unto the rules before laid down, as those that are fundamental unto Christian religion.
These were the principles whereon Christian religion, as it is protestant, was re-introduced into the world, after it had been not only obscured, but almost excluded out of it, as unto its public profession. And these principles are avowed by all true Protestants as those whereon they are ready at all times to put their cause and profession on the trial.
The way whereby the profession of this protestant religion was introduced on these principles, and made public in the world, under the antichristian apostasy, was the same whereby Christian religion entered the world under Paganism, — namely, by the prayers, preaching, writings, sufferings, and holiness of life of them who embraced it, and were called to promote it. And herein their sufferings, for the number of them that suffered, and variety of all cruel preparations of death, are inexpressible. It is capable of a full demonstration, that those who were slain by the sword and otherwise destroyed for their testimony unto Christ and the gospel, in opposition unto the papal apostasy and idolatry, did far exceed the number of them that suffered for the Christian religion in all the pagan persecutions of old. A plant so soaked and watered with the blood of the martyrs will not be so easily plucked up as some imagine. Nay, it is probable it will not go out without more blood (of sufferers, I mean) than it was introduced by; which yet no man knows how to conceive or express.